The Thirteen Part 12

"Very well."

The stranger departed. Ten minutes later Jules heard, with a feverish shudder, the rustle of a silk gown, and almost recognized by their sound the steps of his wife.

"Well, father," said Clemence, "my poor father, are you better? What courage you have shown!"

"Come here, my child," replied Ferragus, holding out his hand to her.

Clemence held her forehead to him and he kissed it.

"Now tell me, what is the matter, my little girl? What are these new troubles?"

"Troubles, father! it concerns the life or death of the daughter you have loved so much. Indeed you must, as I wrote you yesterday, you _must_ find a way to see my poor Jules to-day. If you knew how good he has been to me, in spite of all suspicions apparently so legitimate.

Father, my love is my very life. Would you see me die? Ah! I have suffered so much that my life, I feel it! is in danger."

"And all because of the curiosity of that miserable Parisian?" cried Ferragus. "I'd burn Paris down if I lost you, my daughter. Ha! you may know what a lover is, but you don't yet know what a father can do."

"Father, you frighten me when you look at me in that way. Don't weigh such different feelings in the same scales. I had a husband before I knew that my father was living--"

"If your husband was the first to lay kisses on your forehead, I was the first to drop tears upon it," replied Ferragus. "But don't feel frightened, Clemence, speak to me frankly. I love you enough to rejoice in the knowledge that you are happy, though I, your father, may have little place in your heart, while you fill the whole of mine."

"Ah! what good such words do me! You make me love you more and more, though I seem to rob something from my Jules. But, my kind father, think what his sufferings are. What may I tell him to-day?"

"My child, do you think I waited for your letter to save you from this threatened danger? Do you know what will become of those who venture to touch your happiness, or come between us? Have you never been aware that a second providence was guarding your life? Twelve men of power and intellect form a phalanx round your love and your existence,--ready to do all things to protect you. Think of your father, who has risked death to meet you in the public promenades, or see you asleep in your little bed in your mother's home, during the night-time. Could such a father, to whom your innocent caresses give strength to live when a man of honor ought to have died to escape his infamy, could _I_, in short, I who breathe through your lips, and see with your eyes, and feel with your heart, could I fail to defend with the claws of a lion and the soul of a father, my only blessing, my life, my daughter? Since the death of that angel, your mother, I have dreamed but of one thing,--the happiness of pressing you to my heart in the face of the whole earth, of burying the convict,--" He paused a moment, and then added: "--of giving you a father, a father who could press without shame your husband's hand, who could live without fear in both your hearts, who could say to all the world, 'This is my daughter,'--in short, to be a happy father."

"Oh, father! father!"

"After infinite difficulty, after searching the whole globe," continued Ferragus, "my friends have found me the skin of a dead man in which to take my place once more in social life. A few days hence, I shall be Monsieur de Funcal, a Portuguese count. Ah! my dear child, there are few men of my age who would have had the patience to learn Portuguese and English, which were spoken fluently by that devil of a sailor, who was drowned at sea."

"But, my dear father--"

"All has been foreseen, and prepared. A few days hence, his Majesty John VI., King of Portugal will be my accomplice. My child, you must have a little patience where your father has had so much. But ah! what would I not do to reward your devotion for the last three years,--coming religiously to comfort your old father, at the risk of your own peace!"

"Father!" cried Clemence, taking his hands and kissing them.

"Come, my child, have courage still; keep my fatal secret a few days longer, till the end is reached. Jules is not an ordinary man, I know; but are we sure that his lofty character and his n.o.ble love may not impel him to dislike the daughter of a--"

"Oh!" cried Clemence, "you have read my heart; I have no other fear than that. The very thought turns me to ice," she added, in a heart-rending tone. "But, father, think that I have promised him the truth in two hours."

"If so, my daughter, tell him to go to the Portuguese emba.s.sy and see the Comte de Funcal, your father. I will be there."

"But Monsieur de Maulincour has told him of Ferragus. Oh, father, what torture, to deceive, deceive, deceive!"

"Need you say that to me? But only a few days more, and no living man will be able to expose me. Besides, Monsieur de Maulincour is beyond the faculty of remembering. Come, dry your tears, my silly child, and think--"

At this instant a terrible cry rang from the room in which Jules Desmarets was stationed.

The clamor was heard by Madame Jules and Ferragus through the opening of the wall, and struck them with terror.

"Go and see what it means, Clemence," said her father.

Clemence ran rapidly down the little staircase, found the door into Madame Gruget's apartment wide open, heard the cries which echoed from the upper floor, went up the stairs, guided by the noise of sobs, and caught these words before she entered the fatal chamber:--

"You, monsieur, you, with your horrid inventions,--you are the cause of her death!"

"Hush, miserable woman!" replied Jules, putting his handkerchief on the mouth of the old woman, who began at once to cry out, "Murder! help!"

At this instant Clemence entered, saw her husband, uttered a cry, and fled away.

"Who will save my child?" cried the widow Gruget. "You have murdered her."

"How?" asked Jules, mechanically, for he was horror-struck at being seen by his wife.

"Read that," said the old woman, giving him a letter. "Can money or annuities console me for that?"

Farewell, mother! I bequeeth you what I have. I beg your pardon for my forlts, and the last greef to which I put you by ending my life in the river. Henry, who I love more than myself, says I have made his misfortune, and as he has drifen me away, and I have lost all my hops of merrying him, I am going to droun myself. I shall go abov Neuilly, so that they can't put me in the Morg. If Henry does not hate me anny more after I am ded, ask him to berry a pore girl whose hart beet for him only, and to forgif me, for I did rong to meddle in what didn't consern me. Tak care of his wounds.

How much he sufered, pore fellow! I shall have as much corage to kill myself as he had to burn his bak. Carry home the corsets I have finished. And pray G.o.d for your daughter.

Ida.

"Take this letter to Monsieur de Funcal, who is upstairs," said Jules.

"He alone can save your daughter, if there is still time."

So saying he disappeared, running like a man who has committed a crime.

His legs trembled. The hot blood poured into his swelling heart in torrents greater than at any other moment of his life, and left it again with untold violence. Conflicting thoughts struggled in his mind, and yet one thought predominated,--he had not been loyal to the being he loved most. It was impossible for him to argue with his conscience, whose voice, rising high with conviction, came like an echo of those inward cries of his love during the cruel hours of doubt he had lately lived through.

He spent the greater part of the day wandering about Paris, for he dared not go home. This man of integrity and honor feared to meet the spotless brow of the woman he had misjudged. We estimate wrongdoing in proportion to the purity of our conscience; the deed which is scarcely a fault in some hearts, takes the proportions of a crime in certain unsullied souls. The slightest stain on the white garment of a virgin makes it a thing ign.o.ble as the rags of a mendicant. Between the two the difference lies in the misfortune of the one, the wrong-doing of the other. G.o.d never measures repentance; he never apportions it. As much is needed to efface a spot as to obliterate the crimes of a lifetime. These reflections fell with all their weight on Jules; pa.s.sions, like human laws, will not pardon, and their reasoning is more just; for are they not based upon a conscience of their own as infallible as an instinct?

Jules finally came home pale, despondent, crushed beneath a sense of his wrong-doing, and yet expressing in spite of himself the joy his wife's innocence had given him. He entered her room all throbbing with emotion; she was in bed with a high fever. He took her hand, kissed it, and covered it with tears.

"Dear angel," he said, when they were alone, "it is repentance."

"And for what?" she answered.

As she made that reply, she laid her head back upon the pillow, closed her eyes, and remained motionless, keeping the secret of her sufferings that she might not frighten her husband,--the tenderness of a mother, the delicacy of an angel! All the woman was in her answer.

The silence lasted long. Jules, thinking her asleep, went to question Josephine as to her mistress's condition.

"Madame came home half-dead, monsieur. We sent at once for Monsieur Haudry."

"Did he come? What did he say?"

"He said nothing, monsieur. He did not seem satisfied; gave orders that no one should go near madame except the nurse, and said he should come back this evening."

Jules returned softly to his wife's room and sat down in a chair before the bed. There he remained, motionless, with his eyes fixed on those of Clemence. When she raised her eyelids she saw him, and through those lids pa.s.sed a tender glance, full of pa.s.sionate love, free from reproach and bitterness,--a look which fell like a flame of fire upon the heart of that husband, n.o.bly absolved and forever loved by the being whom he had killed. The presentiment of death struck both their minds with equal force. Their looks were blended in one anguish, as their hearts had long been blended in one love, felt equally by both, and shared equally. No questions were uttered; a horrible certainty was there,--in the wife an absolute generosity; in the husband an awful remorse; then, in both souls the same vision of the end, the same conviction of fatality.

There came a moment when, thinking his wife asleep, Jules kissed her softly on the forehead; then after long contemplation of that cherished face, he said:--